


Aftershocks

by tenderly_wicked



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Breeding stand, Dubious Consent, Gangbang, M/M, Prostitution, Whipping, dark!john
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 16:01:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7059547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenderly_wicked/pseuds/tenderly_wicked
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John finds a way for Sherlock to pay his share of the rent while he has no cases.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftershocks

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [SwissMiss](http://archiveofourown.org/users/SwissMiss/pseuds/SwissMiss) for beta-ing!

“John… what… what’s…” Sherlock slurs a little, unable to finish his question, as John carefully guides him downstairs.

“Shh, it’s okay, I just added something relaxing to your usual enema.”

John holds Sherlock firmly by the waist, so that he won’t stumble, confused and groggy as he is. Sherlock’s grey t-shirt has hiked up a little, and his pyjama bottoms hang low on his slim hips, so John’s palm rests on his naked flank. Sherlock’s bare feet make soft thumping sounds on the wooden stairs.

“Why?” Sherlock insists blearily.

“Remember our agreement? You have to pay your part of the rent. I’m not going to pay it for you just because we’re a couple now.”

‘Because we’re a couple now’ sounds much nicer than ‘because my dick became very intimately acquainted with your pretty arse.’ Besides, Sherlock likes John saying that, though he’d never admit it. He wants to hear it again and again all the more because John still denies it in public, for the sake of convenience.

“At the moment, you’ve got no clients as a detective,” John continues reasoning while nudging Sherlock forward. “I don’t mind you taking unpaid cases for the police or rejecting very generous offers if you’re not interested. It’s your choice. But we agreed that you’d have different clients then. It was your own suggestion. And they could have been abundant—until you scared them all off. You talk too much, you start deducing things about them… I told you so many times, Sherlock. Don’t get clever. I might like you as you are, but others aren’t that lenient. It looks like I have to take the matter into my own hands, or we won’t be able to pay the bills.”

It’s usually John who doesn’t get to the end of the sentence, but now it’s Sherlock’s turn. “Where…”

“Where are we going? Can’t you tell? To the basement flat. 221C. Don’t worry, Mrs Hudson is away for the whole weekend, she won’t mind.”

John’s hand slips lower, onto Sherlock’s boyish hip, and further down. Sherlock’s pubic hair is soft and ticklish.

“Mghm,” Sherlock mutters, perhaps trying to protest. But even if he still has his wits about him to understand what awaits him, he makes no attempt to fight or flee.

John manages to open the door to the basement flat one-handed, still holding the wobbly Sherlock tight because there’s one more set of stairs and he doesn’t want Sherlock to fall. “Careful, mind the step…”

The flat is empty, with damp wallpaper peeling off the walls, and unfurnished, except for a tall mirror propped up in one corner and something else John has placed in the middle of the living room in advance. Not exactly a piece of furniture, more like essential equipment for what he has in mind. Two poles mounted to the ends of a heavy base made of iron. There are U-shaped pieces of curved, padded metal atop each pole, with adjustable leather hoops.

Sherlock stops abruptly when he sees the contraption, and John has to shove him forward. “Come on, don’t be difficult. First, lift your hands up, let me take your t-shirt off. You won’t need it.”

John folds it neatly and lays it onto the mantelpiece, beside a bottle of lubricant, a pack of condoms, and paper tissues.

“Now, your trousers. Down. Just step over them. Yeah, good.”

The pyjamas join the t-shirt. Sherlock just stands there, naked, swaying a little, with an incongruous half-smile, as if he suspects it’s a joke, until John leads him to the metal-and-leather frame and makes him bend over it, so that the larger hoop goes under his belly for support, and the other one under his armpits. It takes some pushing and pulling for Sherlock to assume the correct position.

“It’s very handy that I have a vet among my friends,” John explains in the meantime. “I didn’t have to buy a breeding stand, I just borrowed it. A few modifications—and it fits perfectly, doesn’t it?” John fastens thick leather straps around Sherlock’s hips and shoulders. “Do you know what the thing is for? It’s for animals who have to be held down for mating. The difficult ones. Aggressive ones. Just like you. No-no, don’t move, it’s your own fault that we have to do this. You could have been polite with the clients I’d found for you, but you chose not to.”

John forces Sherlock’s legs wide apart and straps them to the sides of the base, leaving him open. Now Sherlock is securely locked in place, unable to change his position, his arse up high.

“Do I have to muzzle you, so that you don’t say something inappropriate again? Or will you keep your mouth shut?”

A loud smack on Sherlock’s backside and a muffled whine. Sherlock keeps his lips pressed tight in order not to cry out.

“That’s a good boy. Just one more touch, then. I want you to see how good you look when you’re submissive and compliant. When you relax and just take it up your arse instead of being resistant.”

John relocates the mirror so that Sherlock can see his own reflection. It’s a delightful sight, though Sherlock might consider otherwise.

Behind his back, John opens a bottle of lubricant with a loud click. “Now watch how I spread you open for a good pounding. It’s not a punishment, so I’ll prep you well, promise. I don’t want you to get torn, especially by someone else.”

By the time John’s phone chimes in his pocket, Sherlock is whimpering with need, but almost inaudibly. He must still be dazed, but he’s obviously aware that it’s better to keep quiet if John says so. John wipes his hand with a paper tissue. “Oh, it must be your first client. We managed in time. Wait a bit, I’ll let him in. You look very, very inviting, at least from the rear. So don’t worry, he’ll like you.”

When he comes back with company, Sherlock’s face reflecting in the mirror looks a bit panicky, though he’s still aroused. John pats Sherlock’s backside encouragingly. “Enjoy yourself.”

With that, he leaves the room. He’ll wait in the next one; he’s brought a chair there to get all cozy. He can hear the client murmuring, “Oh, that’s good” and “Fuck” and “Yeah, take it”—and Sherlock’s soft, stifled moans in response.

Two more men come and leave.

John brushes a stray curl from Sherlock’s forehead, runs a hand down his back. “Comfortable? Oh, maybe not entirely.”

John pointedly looks under Sherlock’s belly, at his unflagging—and unattended—erection. Sherlock’s hands are free; he can’t reach behind himself to unbuckle the leather bindings, but he could touch himself. Yet he doesn’t. He knows that it’s for John to decide when he’s allowed to come. Definitely not when someone else’s cock is inside him.

John gives Sherlock’s penis an experimental stroke, just once, and Sherlock jerks in his bonds with a desperate groan.

“I’m afraid the next round might hurt,” John warns him. “It’s one of the clients you’ve rebuffed before. He still wants you, but he also wants a compensation, of a sort, for you being rude. He’ll whip your hole before fucking you, okay? Just you hole, nothing else. Twenty strokes. I’ll lend him your riding crop. Yeah, it’ll be a bit harsh, but you were really quite rude to him, so don’t complain. It’s only fair. I expect you to take your lesson stoically.”

Sherlock might be brave, but he cries a lot when he gets his anus whipped, his intention to stay quiet notwithstanding. His poor sensitive opening, usually pale pink and funnily wrinkled, has already become reddened and tender and gaping from the brutal usage—and now this.

In the next room, John palms his erection, listening to Sherlock’s howls. It’s very convenient that Mrs Hudson is away.

After having taught Sherlock a lesson, the client takes his time fucking the abused arse, and Sherlock’s cries finally die down into constant mewling. He still sobs, tears spilling down his face uncontrollably, when the client leaves, very satisfied, and John comes in to check the damage.

John crouches down beside him, wipes his tears, ruffles his hair. “Tough, was it? But it’s all over now. You did well.”

The floor around the breeding stand is littered with spent condoms. John will get rid of them later. He’ll deal with Sherlock first.

“No more clients for today,” John promises, caressing Sherlock’s cheek with the back of his hand. “You’ve got your pay for the whole month now. Isn’t it nice? Next time, you’ll choose for yourself if you want to behave nicely or be held down like this. It might seem harsh, but maybe it’s easier for you this way when you have no choice. Besides, people pay better for a scene like this. Just a few hours—and it’s all over. You’ll be sore for a while, but I’ll take care of you. It’s good to have a doctor for a partner, isn’t it? There’s just one more thing we have to do before I take you upstairs to have a nice hot shower. Do you know what I need to do?”

As John stands up, Sherlock sighs and nods. Of course he knows, clever boy. John might prostitute Sherlock for money, and it might even arouse him, but it doesn’t mean that he isn’t possessive.

“You seem to have found your experience quite pleasurable. If you hadn’t had your arse whipped, you might even have come.”

Now John stands behind Sherlock, spread open for him, but he can still see Sherlock’s face in the mirror and the way his expression tenses, because yeah, John told him to enjoy himself, and yet maybe it was just a test? It often is.

“It’s okay,” John says. “I don’t mind that you’re a slut, not at all. Just don’t you ever forget that you are _my_ slut.”

Only John is allowed to take Sherlock without a condom, and now he does just that—forces his swelling cock into Sherlock’s warm, pulsing passage. The sphincter might be dilated, but John’s so well hung that when he slams all the way in, Sherlock certainly feels how much more he’s stretched. It makes him groan, full voice now. “Oh, John… Oh…”

“Tell me to fuck you.”

“John, please—” Sherlock’s voice quivers with pain and need. “Please fuck me. Please. Oh. John. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m a slut. Oh.”

He _is_ a slut. No matter how raw he is, he’s fully hard when John reaches a hand under him. Good. But he’ll have to wait some more, until John’s release, for the sake of subordination.

John thrusts into him brutally, a surge of possession overwhelming him. That’s his prey, his bitch, his trophy. His. His. When John feels he’s going to come, he pulls out, none too gently, and spurts his semen all over Sherlock’s behind, onto his twitching hole, onto his buttocks. It feels almost ritualistic, marking what belongs to him.

“Want to come too?”

“Please,” Sherlock breathes out, long past caring for dignity.

“Jerk yourself off then,” John orders, rubbing his come into Sherlock’s skin.

Sherlock hastily obeys. He strokes himself a few times, and it’s all that takes for him to come violently, with a broken cry, spilling over the floor. As he thrashes on the breeding stand, still shaking from the intensity of his orgasm, John pats his back tenderly.

Finally, John undoes the straps, helps Sherlock to get up, and they slowly make their way upstairs. John continues to whisper soothing things, and Sherlock clings to him, naked, shivering, sticky with sweat and semen, both his and John’s. He’s so touchingly vulnerable like this. John likes it.

He also enjoys lathering Sherlock up in the shower, toweling him down, having a feel all over him through the plush terrycloth, and then putting him to bed.

But afterwards… John has to retreat to the kitchen to have a moment on his own.

“John?” Sherlock calls after him.

“Just a minute,” John says loudly, in an absolutely normal voice, at least he hopes so. “I’ll be back in no time.”

Just a minute, and he’ll be fine.

Sometimes, it hits him after a particularly brutal scene—a nauseating feeling that he’s doing something revoltingly, inexcusably wrong. How could it have come to this?

John opens a cupboard at random and stares at its contents.

They don’t speak much about their arrangement. He always makes sure that Sherlock isn’t damaged… well, isn’t damaged too much. Isn’t that caring? Doesn’t it mean that he’s not a bad man after all?

As the action went on, he was so into it, so excited, driven by something dark and visceral, that he found himself floating on the heady feeling of power. But as soon as the rush was gone, he felt empty and wrong. Filthy. One step from being a rapist.

Is knowing that Sherlock enjoyed himself too an excuse for further experiments? What if next time Sherlock doesn’t like it? Then what?

“John?” Sherlock calls again from the bedroom. He sounds impatient and a bit perplexed. He’s used to being pampered and soothed after intense scenes. He doesn’t like being left alone.

John closes the cupboard door, not sure why he’s opened it. “Coming!”

In the end, it’s all about the fantasy of not being alone. Of belonging to someone so completely that you lose yourself in him. And you can only belong when you’re needed. Perhaps in Sherlock’s twisted mind, being needed equals being loved, the way one loves a useful object. Is it because people generally tolerate Sherlock only when he’s of use to them? They might even praise him and call him brilliant as long as he does his best to help them out. When he doesn’t cope, he’s nothing to them but an obnoxious prat, a freak, and they remind him of it all the time.

It feels a bit sad, and John doesn’t want to give Sherlock time to think about it. So he comes to the bedroom and slips under the duvet. Sherlock immediately nestles up to his side and swings an arm over his hip, getting comfortable.

“Why are you upset?” he inquires in a demanding tone. Sherlock gets irritable when John’s emotions puzzle him, like it’s John’s duty to be plain and easy to read. But maybe that’s what keeps Sherlock interested—the fascinating unpredictability of John’s reactions.

“I’m not upset,” John murmurs and heaves a sigh because he has little hope that Sherlock won’t pursue this theme further.

And of course Sherlock keeps prying. “Not upset, but not entirely satisfied either? What’s bothering you?”

“I shouldn’t have left you alone when you were bound,” John says after a pause. It’s not the only thing that worries him, but at least one of them.

“Why? Nothing happened to me.”

“But it could. You never know what might go wrong. I might have slipped on the stairs, and you would have stayed there, tethered, until Mrs Hudson came home.”

Sherlock considers it and says, “Yes, I couldn’t have helped you then.”

“That’s not what troubles me.”

Sherlock huffs into his nape. “Always so selfless. Fine, next time think it out better then.”

He says it so casually, like it’s nothing special, planning such things, taking responsibility for them. Making sure it’s discreet enough not to tarnish Sherlock’s reputation. Making sure it’s safe.

John has managed so far. It looks like Sherlock has got used to it.

If something _does_ go wrong though, it’s obvious who’ll be to blame. John can’t force himself not to run scenarios in his mind of what might happen afterwards. Sherlock will think that John failed him. He’ll be displeased. Disappointed. And John will have nothing to say in his defense. Because yeah, he would have fucked up.

_Why is everything always my fault?_

“Is there something else?” Sherlock wonders, perceptive, as always. Insensitive, perhaps, but still perceptive.

John is silent for a while, unsure how to articulate what’s on his mind. Finally, he blurts out, “Are we still friends?”

He wants Sherlock to instantly say, “Yes. Why?” He wants to know if there will be something left between them if the sex part of their deal goes wrong for some reason.

Instead, Sherlock’s hand slips off from John’s hip, and then Sherlock moves away entirely, rolls onto his back without saying anything. John awkwardly turns to his side to look at him.

“Hey?”

Sherlock stares at the ceiling. It takes a few seconds before he says, “If you feel like reconsidering, it’s for you to decide, isn’t it?” His voice sounds distant and formal. “Is it because someone else had intercourse with me, and I didn’t dislike it? Should I have struggled? Should I have begged you to stop it? Is that what I was supposed to do? You said you were fine with me being…a slut. Was it a test of some kind?”

It seems like it’s difficult for him to pronounce the word ‘slut’, though he didn’t seem to have a problem calling himself that in the cellar, while John was fucking the hell out of him. It was so much more simple down there.

“No!” John protests fervently. “No, I didn’t mean it this way. It’s just… It’s not about you, it’s about me. How can I still be your friend, with everything I do to you?”

It sounds like helpless blabbering because John’s not good at this, saying things out loud. But at least it makes Sherlock turn to him.

“And if I’m not your friend anymore, what I am, then?” John asks in a quieter voice. He doesn’t add, _Am I just something to be of use for you?_

“I don’t know,” Sherlock says slowly, looking John in the eyes. “But I wouldn’t do all that with someone I don’t trust. Someone who wouldn’t berate himself for leaving me bound. I don’t mind calling it friendship, if not an ordinary one. We were never ordinary anyway, neither of us.”

John lingers for a moment, then grabs Sherlock by the waist and roughly pulls him close. They don’t usually kiss if it’s not in the rush of coupling, and it’s always more about claiming Sherlock’s mouth than being tender. Otherwise they get a bit embarrassed afterwards. But hugging is okay, Sherlock likes it. Now he lets out a shuddering breath against John’s shoulder, a sound between a sob and a laugh. “So we’re fine, I guess?”

“Of course we’re fine,” John says confidently. “Why shouldn’t we be fine?”

Maybe it’s better to enjoy what he has while he has it, and not to question it much. He once heard a saying, “Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right.” Isn’t it right, keeping them both satisfied, fulfilling their fantasies? If he should be brave enough to take all the blame and all the responsibility for the two of them, so be it.

Lying sleepless beside the drowsy Sherlock, with a hand habitually cupping Sherlock’s buttock, John dimly wonders how much the man who paid him for assaulting Sherlock’s anus with the riding crop would offer for a more prolonged whipping. It’s nice to have Sherlock’s half of the rent covered, but why not the whole of it?

Also, he berates himself for not taking pictures. Sherlock looked so good trapped on the breeding stand, like he belonged there. Oh well. On the other hand, Mrs Hudson is still away and the stand is still there. They can use it again tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to visit me on [Tumblr](http://tenderlywicked.tumblr.com) or check out my novel "Tenderly Wicked" and my paranormal M/M series "The Sons of Gomorrah" :)


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